Killer Take All

by Philip Race

  French said, "I know, I've run into it. Pimp would be fish—for fish 'n shrimp." He grinned, the movement transforming that beefy face. "And bottle—for bottle and stopper. Meaning copper. Yeah, I've heard it, all right. But I never would have made the connection like you did with what you heard."

  "It had to be. There was no one else in the thing named anything like what he said. I'm the only Johnny. And I know damn well I didn't do it. When you couldn't uncover something, I wondered if my ears had been tricking me. But that's what he said. Johnny Ronce. He was cussing his attacker. He probably called to Carla, who was outside for some air. Remember, he was dying and he knew it. I think he wanted to use that gun he had on whoever it was that had used it on him. He told the girl to get someone from the club, called him a God-damn Johnny Ronce just because he was dying and knew it and crazy mad to get some skin before he cashed in. That's the only way it figures."

  "Maybe you think so. But I need evidence. What reason does that leave for Donetti's push?"

  "Lieutenant, I don't know that. Maybe the protective association thing he was trying to push. Maybe the syndicate didn't like the way he was running things at the lake. Maybe he was getting ambitious. Hell, I don't know. Maybe any God-damn thing. You figure it out."

  French considered it. "No," he said. "That isn't it. It's local. I'm sure of that and I'm sure the same guy killed both Donetti and the girl. And I'll find out who."

  He rose, motioned the chief to turn off the machine. "You go on home, slicker. We'll see about—"

  "Wait a minute. How about Ford Messner? And what's with the girl Sheila? How come you haven't mentioned them?"

  "Sheila works at the Devil's Play Spot. We know that. But it's outside our jurisdiction."

  "Never mind alibiing the vice. What about Messner?"

  He looked at me for a moment like he'd like to tear my head off. For the first time I got an inkling that it might not be easy to be a cop. Especially an honest cop in a dirty town.

  "Okay," he said. "Sheila's Messner's girl. She—"

  "That's what I wanted to hear. That makes that chilly bastard eligible and I like the hell out of that."

  "Wait. That's why he's working for O'Rourke. Coley has eyes for the redhead. Always had. He figures by having her old man around he puts himself in a position where he might get aced in. You see?"

  I nodded. "Yeah. I worried about that. Him working for O'Rourke. Coley was supposed to be against this GPA thing and Messner was pushing it. And Messner was on the scene real quick when Donetti got it. Real quick."

  "He followed you out."

  "He says."

  "Who says different? Nobody knows who was in and who was out when the Cad hit the building. And what difference does it make, anyhow?"

  "I like him," I said stubbornly.

  "You mean you don't like him. That's fine. I don't like you." His eyes swung around, settled on my face. "But I won't fit you for a murder rap for that reason."

  "But he's—"

  "He's got an alibi, Berlin. A good one."

  "Not for the Donetti push."

  "No. But for Carla. He was with a girl. Till after four. Pretty hard to shake."

  "Sheila? You'd take her word? Why that's the—"

  His head was shaking. He leaned back, gripped a knee in both hands. A funny little smile played around his hard lips.

  "Not Sheila," he said. "She was with Kilgallen all the time. Messner was with Gina Donetti. Till four in the morning."

  Fran got me out of there. The days without sleep caught up with me all at once. The shock of finding out about Carla didn't help any. And the bit about Messner and Gina. All together it was too much. My mind just got soggy and dark; the world slid back a little and I watched things happen without taking part myself. I don't know what French said to Fran. I don't know what she told him about us. I was there, but my abused mind and body had decided it was time to recuperate.

  The world was still the same. The same stinking boxes within larger stinking boxes calibrated according to chance, each with a corner reserved for private hells. This was the first I'd ever inhabited. Why Carla's death should affect me this deeply I couldn't imagine. I only knew that it had. Perhaps I'd been getting ripe for this a long time. Maybe my dissatisfaction with Reno and Vegas and the merry-go-round I'd been riding for years had finally become too much for me. It's a hell of a life.

  But she was dead. Torn, bloody dead. When you die, it's a long time between drinks.

  And Gina was Messner's alibi.

  Someone was slapping my face. The morning came to me with a rush. It was Fran. Her ivory loveliness swam into focus and I looked around.

  "What goes?"

  "Your hotel, Johnny. You tried to walk past. I didn't want to take you inside."

  I backed off, looked at her. No frost this morning. Cream slacks and a suede coat over a tight sweater. Her short hair was mussed and ragged around her face.

  "That figures, you wouldn't take me up."

  "Johnny, don't start that again. It isn't what I meant."

  "It's what you said."

  "I know, but—" She sucked a breath, stuck out her chin. "Look, I only meant I didn't want anyone to—to—"

  I said, "To what? Go ahead, to what? You think so damn straight you couldn't bend to save a life. Or a soul."

  Tears formed in her eyes, dimming the violet lights. "Johnny, I don't know how to act with you. I just don't. I'm not trying to act the perennial virgin, really I'm not."

  I closed my eyes. "Go home," I whispered. "Get away from me. You don't belong here. You don't belong with me. Any more than that kid belonged with Layton."

  "Oh* Johnny, have you been blind all your life? Don't you think if you cut me I'll bleed? If you play on me, music will come? I can't help what I am. I love you, God help me, but I can't be anything but what I am."

  Her breasts rose sharply with her breathing, pushing aside the wings of her coat. Her face was white, strained.

  "I can't be Gina Donetti, Johnny. Even for you."

  I slapped her. My hand came up and I slammed her against the glass. The moment it was done, I was sorry. But I couldn't say so. The words wouldn't come. My brain ran sweat and a pain began behind my ears. Her head came around. There was no fear in her face, no recrimination. Just the sorrow and red marks from my fingers, my hand. Her eyes looked at me, openly, steadily.

  I turned away.

  Had to get to my room. To bed. Too long without sleep, too much emotional spending. I slogged to the elevator, wrestled open the doors. My eyes searched the lobby windows before the sliding panels cut off my view.

  Fran was gone...

  Chapter 13

  The phone rang for a long time before I could force myself to answer it. A wad of crumpled and sour sheets made a lump under me. I rolled over, snatched the clanging instrument.

  It was Gina. I came awake, swung my legs over the side of the bed. She was talking. I couldn't understand anything she said, so I told her to call back and hung up.

  The ringing began again right away. I let it ring. I just dropped my head into my hands and sat naked on the soiled bed and thought of Carla. Carla—bright, like a new dime or old dreams. From now on she'd be a name, a twinge. That's all. So I sat there sweating in the airless heat of the afternoon in a cheap room of an earthy town and said my poor good-by. To a kid I'd hardly known. But she'd become important to me in a way I didn't really understand. Maybe wouldn't ever understand.

  Twice while I shaved and cleaned up for the night's work I called the Devil's Play Spot, asked for Gina. She wasn't there. I called Dan and told him I'd be late that night.

  Then I called French, asked if there was anything new on the killing and got the dead girl's address. The only thing French had found out since last night was that the murder car had been a stolen heap from Roseburg, an inland town about ninety miles away. They'd found it in a canyon, without recognizable prints.

  My rented heap was still in the hotel parking lot. I filled it a
t a gleaming station, ate peanuts and drank a Coke. My stomach was empty; had been, it seemed, for days. But somehow I didn't want anything to eat. Not just then. Halfway to Devil's Lake the mist darkened and I switched on the headlights. The dash clock said six-twenty.

  There were five or six cars in the graveled lot to one side of the main building. I squeezed in next to a low-slung sports car, stepped out into pine-scented night. A bright red grew all around me and I realized they'd turned on the sign atop the place. Business as usual. The king is dead; long live the queen. The flickering neon flames shed a diffused glow on the light mist, bathed the glittering hotel-casino in pink phosphorescence.

  The lobby was almost empty. A clerk behind a fancy desk; a bored bellhop and a cigar stand with a leaning girl. I walked to the desk. It was small and compact sandwiched between two sweeping modern stairways. A redwood slab counter and rows of pigeonholes for mail behind it. The clerk told me where the office was and I took off across the lobby.

  I walked what seemed like several blocks toward the lake side of the building. The hall was dark. Offices and dressing rooms. A red bulb glowed over a fire exit a few yards beyond the door I stopped before. I knuckled briefly.

  "Come in."

  I stepped in, closed the door. It was an office. Donetti's probably. Gilbertson was there with Gina. Both looked up at my entrance; neither spoke.

  The room was coldly modern and efficient. A large ivory-colored desk and a profusion of leather chairs and a couple of green file cabinets. A small bar stuck out of one wall.

  I said, "Howdy."

  Gina came alive then. She flowed toward me, put up her arms, kissed me on the mouth. Like a long lost dividend or the hero come with the rent.

  "Darling." The eyes went up and down, lids drooping. "Where have you been? I've been frantic."

  "Where have I been?" I looked at her. The smooth face seemed unnaturally tight, rigidly controlled.

  She took my hand, kept her eyes turned away from Horace Gilbertson, led me to a cream-leather couch. Her perfume, the heady aroma of crushed violets, drifted behind like a beckoning finger.

  "Sit here, darling," she said. "I'll get you a drink."

  The banker watched the bit, a tiny smile tugging at his mustache. He said the ordinary things and I replied. But I was watching Gina. Something about her nudged me differently than ever before. I didn't know what. But I'd find out. She hipped her way to the tiny bar. She had on a clinging jersey thing with a gold kid belt; her slippers were gold, too, and high-heeled. The raven hair hung loose as if she hadn't had time to arrange it. And maybe that was it. Maybe Messner had stayed longer than four o'clock this morning. Gilbertson was still talking. About the girl's death, about Donetti's leaving the affairs of the Play Spot in a mess.

  Gilbertson seemed at home behind Donetti's desk. Or maybe he just seemed at home behind any desk. A silver modern drape hung behind the chair, outlining his head! A cold glass touched my hand and Gina folded herself neatly onto the couch beside me, crossed her legs with a nylon hiss.

  "The Play Spot needs a manager," he said. "You have the experience. My reports on what you've accomplished at the Cherbourg in a short time are good."

  Gina's hand caught my unoccupied one, squeezed it. I took a long drink of the Scotch and water, set the glass on the floor.

  "Well?" Gina said. "Say something. Answer him."

  "When I answer him, baby, I'll have something to say."

  "What's to think about, darling?" She was hitting that kind of heavy, I thought, under the circumstances. "He just offered you the Play Spot. You know what that means?"

  "I can puzzle it out." I pulled my hand free, leaned forward in Gilbertson's direction. "Mr. Gilbertson, thanks a lot, but no thanks. I got troubles without getting mixed up with you people."

  "What do you mean, 'you people'?"

  I shrugged. "We all know what I mean. I'm a loner. No ties. I'm stubborn. Somebody continually telling me what to do and how to do it, why I'm a cinch to mess up. You wouldn't be satisfied with me at all. And I don't like the operation here."

  Gina snorted. "I do believe he means the girls, Horace. Damned if it hasn't got a conscience."

  "I can see where you'd think that was funny, doll." I turned to her and I guess my eyes were cold; she backed away a little. "No conscience. I can't afford it. Just some things you do, some you don't do. That's all."

  Gilbertson nodded. "Principles," he said. "Of whatever sort. I respect them. We'll let that go. What have you found out about the death of our—of Marino Donetti? And do you believe the young girl's death is linked?"

  "Yes. They're linked, all right. No other reason for that kid to get it. That's why I came out tonight. It's about time somebody found out for sure why Donetti got shoved. I think you know."

  He swiveled the chair slowly, made a tent of his fingers. His eyes were slitted and I thought they were aimed at Gina. She sat, saying nothing, plucking at the jersey dress where it dipped between her thighs. Restless. Eyes dark and the generous body molten and vibrant even in repose.

  "Berlin," Gilbertson said suddenly, "I'm going to tell you."

  I got up, walked to the bar, speaking over my shoulder. "One thing first. If it touches this kid's death, this Carla, I'm going to tell the cops if I think I should."

  "All right. Your judgment. Do you have any ideas? Just to see how your mind works, Berlin. No games."

  I poured a drink, walked around the couch and stood behind Gina, looking over her at my banker friend.

  "No syndicate pressure. I know that. If you were trying to sew the area you'd do it right and you'd do it tight and there'd be no slips. Right?"

  "Granting the premise," he said, smothering a smile. "Substantially correct. Go on."

  "Leaves a couple of things. Donetti operating on his own, with or without permission from the—from you. A big debt of some sort is another possibility. And finally—" I looked down at Gina. She was still. The black dress began low and when she pushed her head back on the couch, looked up at me, I could almost see her navel. "Finally, this one," I said, "Gina. The bomb with a short fuse. Nature's answer to birth control."

  Gilbertson nodded. Gina's eyes narrowed.

  "I don't deserve that from you, Johnny," she said. "I can be nasty, too, you know."

  "No offense, doll. But it's a possibility. Jealousy in any number of directions. Anyway, enough games. What's the bit?"

  "Money," Gilbertson said. "Seventy-five thousand dollars."

  I whistled. "Figures. The long green."

  Gina sucked a sharp breath. "Horace, it doesn't figure. There's more than that here all the time."

  "No, there isn't," Gilbertson said. "Close, sometimes. After a good weekend. We do not customarily allow that much money to accumulate in one spot. For obvious reasons. Besides, this was different money, for a different purpose. Small bills, unmarked. It was delivered to Marino Donetti by a representative of an organization in which I have a small interest. For a specific purpose."

  "I got it," I said. "And a whole lot of other things. Now I know why I got run off the road the first night I got here."

  "What do you think, Mr. Berlin?"

  "Operating capital. To tie up the area for the syndicate."

  "I don't like that word."

  "Okay, company, then. Anything you want to call it. The whole works in a bundle. The gambling through the Gambler's Protective Association. The vice through muscle and key control with this joint as a nucleus. That it?"

  "Substantially. Donetti submitted a plan. We looked it over, decided to let him go ahead on his own initiative. If he could wrap up this tight little area—and outside people would have run into much difficulty, Mr. Berlin, believe me—then he would be the logical man to run it for us." He shrugged. "It seemed worth a chance. We'd been thinking about it. We knew that small towns were tough. They band together against what they call foreign interests. If anything was to be done, it had to be done from inside. Donetti proposed to do that. He promised help
from local sources."

  I reached the desk in a stride. "That's what I want to hear. Who? Name me the local source and you can forget the hassle."

  His eyes came up, met mine. They looked more yellowish in the full glare of the overhead lighting.

  "We don't know," he said. "That's why I—we—are here. I propose to find out."

  "You'll have to beat me."

  "No contest, Berlin. I'm interested in the money. And in finding out who killed Donetti. If you help, I will, of course, be grateful. On the other hand..."

  He let it trail off and hang in the room, but we all knew what he'd been about to say. I nodded, pushed my glass back and forth on the desk top.

  "One more thing," I said, turning to the woman. "Before I go to work. What were you and Ford Messner doing here at four in the morning?"

  Gina pulled her head off the couch-back, looked at me,

  "You make it sound like an accusation, darling."

  I spun, walked to her.

  "No double-talk. No stalling. You think I'm jealous, you're wrong. You think I'm panting after your spot, you're wrong. I want to know because last night a little girl got killed for no reason that makes a damn bit of ordinary sense. So I want to know."

  She lowered her eyes, twisted on the leather couch. "Certainly," she said. "Mr. Messner came here to ask me to intercede with Horace for him about the managership of the Play Spot. That's all."

  "How long was he here?"

  "Oh, what difference does that make? All you—"

  "What time, Gina?"

  "Four," she said, suddenly blazing. "There, you happy? He came about two and left after four. That's what I told the police. That's what I tell you. Now think what you please."

  My eyes stayed on the perfect face, watching for some sign that would tell me which way to jump. There was nothing. Just the spurious anger, and maybe a little fear.

  "Okay," I said. "That makes it damn convenient for Ford Messner. You give him a hard alibi. Without it, he'd be the number-one suspect for both killings. Damn convenient."